Tapping Financial Resources

By: Sandy Zomuanpuii & Zothansanga

Just as much as educational advancement is crucial for students, financial aid in the form of scholarship is important as well. We attended our academic institutions for educational advancements keeping in mind the financial aid that we will receive monthly, quarterly and annually which really help students in our academic expense and pursue.

We, the tribals also received our scholarship annually under the name ‘Post Matric Tribal Scholarship’. For this scheme, students are grouped accordingly.

GROUP ‘A’- Professional Course

GROUP ‘B’- Regular Course

GROUP ‘C’- Bachelor Degree

Each group receives different amount according to their courses.

It is indeed helpful for students though it could not cover all their annual expenses. This year students were notified that it will be transferred in their private bank accounts and that they have to write their bank account numbers in their application form.

But what we want to focus is on the imbalance that occurs as far as applying and receiving of the scholarship is concerned. While applying is not that difficult, receiving of the scholarship is usually delayed. This year there was a delay in dispersing the funds by the state machinery and their excuses centers around that the money was not released by the Finance Department or it was stuck with the Treasury Department. Due to all of these, the students faced problems financially.

As evident from what we mentioned before, an agitation occurred during 10^th march 2015 organized by the Mizo Students Union when students hold a rally blaming the government for this very matter. When we ask the Secretary of the Students Council of Mizoram University Mr. V.L Remruatfela why they hold such a rally, he replied,” We feel that the government is neglecting the students affairs. We know that the fund was released from the Central Government last year but no moves were made by the government in giving out the money at the earliest. So we wanted to show them (the Government) the students’ power as a large vote banks. The main reason for the rally was that we felt that the state neglected the students in their budget process, that the Education and Human Resource Budget estimates were low. We also strongly felt that the education of the state cannot prosper under such frugal estimation.”

The rally bears fruit since scholarship was given quickly post the rally. Again, we interviewed Mr. V.L Remruatfela on this matter and he answered that “For now we feel that the rally organized by the Mizo Students Union is successful on two points. First, the government realized that students are powerful and when united we form a very strong unit. We feel that the government will pay more attention to the student’s community. Second, students are now getting their scholarship which was and is rightly theirs.”

For now, let us move away from such discussions and take a look at the different scholarship program prepared for students. Here are the list you could avail:

1.Post-Doctoral Fellowship for Women
2. Research Award

3.Emeritus Fellowship
4. Rajiv Gandhi Fellowship for SC/ST Candidates 5. Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship for person with Disability
6. Maulana Azad National Fellowship for Minorities Students
7. Post-Doctoral Fellowship for SC/ST Candidates
8.Post-Graduation Scholarship for Professional Courses for SC/ST Candidates
9. Indira Gandhi PG. Scholarship for Single Girl Child 
10. PG. Scholarship for University Rank Holders.  

Any interested students can look up to this small examples though there are many more.

Click to the link for further details:

www.ugc.ac.in